[Spoiler] designing the Vengeance

I'm not entirely sold on why precisely Marcus and Section 31 needed Khan to design the Vengeance. They must have experienced starship builders already on hand. Anyway, what are the chances that Khan, a twentieth century man, could come up with something like that in the short time since Vulcan's destruction and his awakening?

He's a geneticly engineered superhuman. I mean, Khan in TOS was able to take over and learn to use a starship pretty darned quickly. So why not be able to learn about starship systems and then enhance them?

I suspect Khan took an unbuilt warship concept and improved upon it, rather than designing it from the ground-up. Marcus was planning his war with the Klingons for years, Vulcan's destruction gave him the excuse he needed and Khan was a big bonus help from "an uncivilized time"

I suspect Khan took an unbuilt warship concept and improved upon it, rather than designing it from the ground-up. Marcus was planning his war with the Klingons for years, Vulcan's destruction gave him the excuse he needed and Khan was a big bonus help from "an uncivilized time"

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The Enterprise looked to be half-way done when Kirk entered the Academy and was only launching three years later. I doubt that they could have built a ship twice the size in less than a year.

Perhaps, being high priority, they just put 10x as many workers on it? But you're right, Vengeance being already under construction and given a few extra bells and whistles by Khan (like the ability to be flown by just one man... I'm sure nobody at S31 HQ thought that suspicious!) after he was thawed does make more sense.

Exactly, Vengeance was already underway, Marcus wanted an uncivilised view of warfare, weaponry, tactics and ideas to basically put every under handed advantage possibly into his ship and think of every contingency should it be needed.

Proofing, not building. And I suspect had Khan not escaped, Marcus would have found another way to incite war, and simply dispose of Khan and his men immediately after.

Khan may well have exaggerated his role in the creation or interior decoration of the Vengeance. He'd be just the type, after all. Probably Marcus employed a dream team of psychopaths, with Khan just one of the loonier ones; if Khan really were a unique asset to Marcus, he'd probably be under closer watch and unable to effect his escape.

I suspect Khan took an unbuilt warship concept and improved upon it, rather than designing it from the ground-up. Marcus was planning his war with the Klingons for years, Vulcan's destruction gave him the excuse he needed and Khan was a big bonus help from "an uncivilized time"

Click to expand...

The Enterprise looked to be half-way done when Kirk entered the Academy and was only launching three years later. I doubt that they could have built a ship twice the size in less than a year.

I suspect Khan took an unbuilt warship concept and improved upon it, rather than designing it from the ground-up. Marcus was planning his war with the Klingons for years, Vulcan's destruction gave him the excuse he needed and Khan was a big bonus help from "an uncivilized time"

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The Enterprise looked to be half-way done when Kirk entered the Academy and was only launching three years later. I doubt that they could have built a ship twice the size in less than a year.

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I'm sure if they BUILT IT IN SPACE they could have put together something very big very quickly.

I'm sure if they BUILT IT IN SPACE they could have put together something very big very quickly.

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Why would building in space be any quicker? You still have to fabricate the parts and assemble the ship.

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Assembly in zero-gee by veterans would be like a hardware ballet. Once you get gravity out of the way and have people who understand inertia and mass, handling construction would be like shuffling cards.

They've already done limited fabrication in space because you can form things in zero-gee that are harder to do down here. Presumably that would be beneficial for starships too. Not EVEN gonna get into the whole business of antimatter planetside and warp engines within a gravity well, especially with Orci's weird claim that you'd need a gravity well to calibrate the engines.

Honestly, the whole built-on-Earth thing has always made me feel like I'm living among Flat-Earthers, or with people who think a light-year is a conventional measurement of time rather than distance. If there's anything that bugs me more than religious fundamentalist zealots, politicians and repeat felons (and yeah, all three of those go together handily enough some of the time), it is flat-Earthers. (Velikovsky folks probably fit in there somewhere as well.)

Honestly, the whole built-on-Earth thing has always made me feel like I'm living among Flat-Earthers, or with people who think a light-year is a conventional measurement of time rather than distance. If there's anything that bugs me more than religious fundamentalist zealots, politicians and repeat felons (and yeah, all three of those go together handily enough some of the time), it is flat-Earthers. (Zelikovsky folks probably fit in there somewhere as well.)

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You do understand it's a movie?

You may have a "ballet" during construction, but it's still going to take a good, long time to fabricate parts for a 1,400 meter ship.

You may have a "ballet" during construction, but it's still going to take a good, long time to fabricate parts for a 1,400 meter ship.

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GRAVITY is a movie too, and it seems to have considerable respect for the environment it portrays. Same as LARRY o' ARABIA. Hell, even 2010 to a great degree, even if the storytelling is a little rough.

Just one of those advantages with zero-gee fabrication is being able to handle very large jobs without worrying about supporting what you're working on.

For a Trek reference, I'd suggest Duane's THE WOUNDED SKY, which has spacecraft and/or docks that as I recall are pretty much 'spun' in vacuum, and REALLY do the 'technology unchained' GR notion (before he came up with it) in terms of creating something beautiful and functional using advanced tech.

Zero-gee is only an advantage if you build something massively three-dimensional. In two dimensions, a flat factory floor works just as well, if not better. For one, it only takes energy to accelerate components, not to decelerate them...

In any case, starships must be slow to build, otherwise Star Trek could not exist. After all, it is built on the concept that starships are rare things and the heroes arrive in the nick of time, without backups. What possible reason could there be to starship shortage in a society that enjoys all those futuristic production resources and is vitally dependent on a sufficient supply of said ships?

Let's see. Howzabout their chunk of the galaxy is very large? Also, relating more to the abramsverse, perhaps they lose huge quantities of vessels to more powerful intruders on a semi-regular basis.

I mean, 'the fleet' is occupied in the 09, so instead they send off all the rest of the available ships, which soon become jetsam.

Also, I don't get the idea that there is a shortage of starships in this version at all; the whole business of Pike saying Kirk could get his own ship in less than a decade makes it sound like there are PLENTY to go around, not like just 12 starships and a few science vessels.

Another thing: you're trying to reconcile a theoretical science notion about the ships with a longstanding cross-universe contrivance revolving around 'only ship in the ______.' The latter is a function (or disfunction) of plotting, the former a matter of credibility for some, and no matter at all to most.

Khan's genetics, intellect and the ability to learn is supposedly far greater than normal starfleet engineers, it is like asking an intelligent adult to quicly solve a child's jig saw puzzle.

Like any peice of machinery, it's potential performance is limited by budget, time and the knowledge/understanding required to break through technological boundaries that have baffled 23rd century ship builders.

Exactly, Vengeance was already underway, Marcus wanted an uncivilised view of warfare, weaponry, tactics and ideas to basically put every under handed advantage possibly into his ship and think of every contingency should it be needed.

Proofing, not building. And I suspect had Khan not escaped, Marcus would have found another way to incite war, and simply dispose of Khan and his men immediately after.

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This why I keep thinking the Vengeance is a pre existing or publicly known next-gen class of ship that was jacked up on steroids to the point that Kirk and Co. didn't recognize her right off the bat. The Abrams' universe equivalent of the Excelsior project--only hijacked by a madman and his pet augment.